If you haven’t noticed from the sheer enormity of superhero coverage as of late, we currently live in a film environment that is flooded with comic book content. The “superhero movie” genre is more popular than it’s ever been before, and as long as these movies keep making piles of money (they will), don’t expect the trend to die down any time soon. While Marvel is currently getting much of the attention with its extremely prolific and interconnected series of films, 20th Century Fox revitalized the X-Men series last year with the wonderful X-Men: First Class. A sequel is in the works for that film, and production is gearing up to begin on a follow-up to the Wolverine spin-off, The Wolverine. The studio owns a number of other Marvel characters, giving them the potential to make some truly exciting comic book movies.
Steve got the chance to sit down with Fox CEO Tom Rothman at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. While they talked about a number of Fox properties throughout the course of the conversation (look for more updates here on the site soon), we wanted to bring you a tidbit of information that Rothman dropped about a feature film adaptation of a really fun Marvel property: The New Mutants. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.
For those unaware, the New Mutants comics were a spin-off of the X-Men series. The characters first appeared in 1982 in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 and featured a young team of Professor Charles Xavier’s students.
Unlike the singular X-Men, the New Mutants team was made up of ethnic diversity and included: Karma, a 19-year-old Vietnamese girl who could mentally possess other people’s bodies, Cannonball, a Kentuckian with the ability to rocket through the air, Wolfsbane, a Scot who transforms into a wolf-like creature, Psyche, a Cheyenne with the power to create three-dimensional illusions, and Sunspot, a Brazilian with superhuman strength that was powered by sunlight. The series was rebooted in 2003, but the new version of New Mutants was more closely tied to the X-Men and the Xavier Institute.
Given the commercial and critical success of the young-skewing superhero flicks First Class and Chronicle, it seems like a no-brainer for Fox to pull the trigger on a New Mutants movie. Steve brought the prospect up to Rothman, who gave a cryptic yet telling response:
Steve: I know you guys have like The New Mutants and a lot of characters in the X-Men universe. Obviously you guys are moving forward on an X-Men sequel, you’re moving forward on Wolverine, do you envision New Mutants or some of these other characters as franchises that the door can be open to? It does seem to me that the superhero genre is bigger than it’s ever been, and you guys have some of the crown jewels.
Rothman: (smiles) Yes.
When can fans expect an announcement on some of these other properties? Before Comic-Con, after Comic-Con, at Comic-Con?
Rothman: In the summer.
Are you talking to filmmakers right now?
Rothman: Let me just say this. All I have to say is, I agree with you in your assessment of the potential in a lot of these characters.
Steve said that Rothman was all-smiles when he brought up New Mutants and all but confirmed that a New Mutants movie will be announced soon. Really, the decision makes perfect sense. Marvel is making a killing with their individual superhero movies, but Fox owns a great deal of Marvel characters and the studio would be stupid not to turn some of them into movies.
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Yeah, but… The New Mutants were ostensibly lower-tier X-Men. And those fanboy favorites are already being introduced in the ‘X-Men: First Class’ and ‘Wolverine’ franchises.
So, what? We’re going to see Cannonball, Bird-Brain, and Boom-Boom get into a tussle with equally shitty X-men villains?
A ‘New Mutants’ flick could work if they bring in James McAvoy for a Prof-X cameo, work the the story in the same universe as ‘X-Men:FC’, and have at least one or two popular characters lead this new team.
FOX should start thinking about brand continuity. ‘The Avengers’ is about to hump the box office next week.
are we flooded? how many bad fucking comedies come out each year. also, the x-men team was extremely diverse. banshee is from ireland, storm is from africa, night crawler if french, colossus is russian. i’m really not sure where you’re trying to go w/ this article but i feel like you need to read up a bit more before you write about comic book films.
I was going to say the same thing about the diversity topic. The whole point of the second generation of X-Men introduced in 1975 was making them a more world-spanning team. You had Wolverine (Canadian), Storm (Kenyan), Nightcrawler (German actually, not French), Banshee (Irish), Colossus (Russian), Thunderbird (Native American), and Sunfire (Japanese). Then of course later you get Jubilee (not that anyone cares about her, but she was Chinese), Gambit (Cajun), Psylocke (British, got her mind transferred into a Japanese body I think, don’t know if that’s a legitimate increase of diversity though). For the most part, these are mainstays of the team. I don’t know if I can really think of anything more diverse than that.
I had some of my faith restored in Fox with First Class, but I can’t help but feel that the line-up won’t quite be in line with the roster listed above. Although, it could still very well end up being pretty cool. Just have to wait and see.
Man forget the new mutants what’s up with an x-force movie its about time we see bad ass cable on the big screen.
I didn’t see your comment before I posted mind, but you are 100% on the spot.
Now that everybody and their grammas love Wolverine bring Cable to the big screen, he can teach anybody a thing or two about been a bad ass! There’s a hole of lot story plots to gather from he’s comic books! And characters!
Duh, first of all.. NightCrawler is GERMAN, not French.
Second of all, considering how horribly Fox has handled ALL the X-men movies, this will be just another crapfest. No actual New Mutants will appear in the movie what-so-ever. It’ll probably star like X-23 (B/c they love Wolverine). Psylocke (fanservice), Polaris (Magneto’s daughter), Changeling (Sacrifice), Sunfire (the sole POC), and Longshot (as the leader), or something infinitely lame. None of the ACTUAL new mutants will appear in this movie at all, just like there was no members of the first Class in First Class and no actual team of X-Men in the original movies. So why should we be even REMOTELY excited about this? I don’t understand why people who claim to be X-Men fans fawn over these incredibly crappy movies that have about the same difference to the comics as say the Catwoman or Elektra movies (I.E. little to none).
Seriously? Did you forget that Beast was a member of the original team?
They couldn’t put Angel (Warren) in, because of the continuity with the X-Men movies.
And honestly, We’ve had enough of the Cyclops/Jean Grey story on the screen.
You might have had enough of Cyclops and Phoenix. I certainly have not. If anything, I am sick to death of Magneto movies pretending to be X-men movies. Just start a series with him alone already.
WHERE is Cable?? thats a great character for a movie.
I have read X-Men for years but am less familiar with the New Mutants… although I know some of them from other appearances.
I wonder why they’re focusing on the New Mutants and not (the misnamed) Generation X?
Chamber, Husk, M, Jubilee, Synch, Skin… they were fun. Maybe they will end up mixing the rosters together
To me this is just a desperate attempt to have a comic book film that can be sold as young adult…
They definitely need to have Cable in this movie as the guy who pulls the New Mutants together and trains them. That would be awesome! Not sure who should play him. Someone older, but not too old because they want to build a new franchise with this. Whoever it is, it’s got to be someone who is so badass that he makes Jackman’s Wolverine look like a wimp.
The New Mutants was the book that got me into comics to begin with. I LOVED the more teenage-oriented stories and the camaraderie that came from being a much younger group…away at Xavier\’s secret boarding school. I disagree with the individual who said that using Cable would be the way to go – for me, Cable represented the beginning of the end for the original New Mutants.
Most of all, I loved the character of Illyana Rasputin/Magik and her ongoing story arc. The \"Inferno\" storyline was a huge highlight of my teenage comic-reading years, and the more recent \"X-Infernus\" mini-series was notable in that it brought this incredible character back into the X-Men universe. Giving Magik a prominent role in a movie would also possibly give viewers a chance to see more of Colossus, an X-Man who we have only had tantalizing glimpses of in the movies.